I don't understand the question and I won't respond to it.

Boring Blog Maintainence Post

Posted on July 15th, 2013 by Cerberus

So yeah, no random wingnut dancing on the grave of Trayvon Martin today, nor a rundown of bizarre sexual obsessions from some repressed homophobe. Instead, we’re talking about the rundown shack we’ve all decided to huddle under as our adoptive home.

We here up on the front page have been discussing a number of long-term and short-term changes for the blog, most of them sexual (I’ve been told not to talk too much about Operation Orgy Night before we invest adequately in plastic sheets, alcohol wipes, and duct tape). Some of them already in place (better and more regular communication between front-pagers), some definitely scheduled for later in the future (Giant Robot Apocalypse).

Most of which is about general updating and improvement of the site as a whole (in addition to the various secret plans for a complete overthrow of the Florida State government), some dealing with aspects that have far too long been neglected.

Which leads to the topic we’re putting to you all today.

Trolls. And how to deal with the problem in the long-term.

Basically, one option we are currently exploring is instituting a policy wherein before a comment appears, the author must have a previously approved comment.

Upside of this model: Complete obliteration of our pet stalker troll before he escalates to real world actions as well as allowing comment threads to be 100% fixated on terrible puns and food porn (as God intended!).

Downside of this model: Increased inconvenience to new posters and we’d definitely have to have a boring post day where all the regulars post and get approved early on. Also, 6% chance of rousing Cthulhu from his eternal slumber.

Full disclosure: This is not the only solution we’re looking into. Instituting a sign-in system would be another potential option. Additionally, a good short term solution would be promoting some readers as moderators, though we’re looking at how to work that with the current FYWP setup we are using. And there’s a few other options that we could institute. And of course there’s just continuing what we’re currently doing. I mean, it’s not like it’s terribly difficult work to take out the trash from time to time.

So yeah, discuss amongst yourselves, give us feedback one way or the other, raise issues we’re not thinking of, ask questions of us about the potential change, or just book your spots for Operation Orgy. Whatever.

I don’t know how to deal with the current situation—these latest trolls are clinically psychotic, and a fairly restrictive sign-in system would probably be the only way to keep them from emptying their cranial crumb trays all over every thread.

That being said, I really miss the way things used to be—I depended on this blog to keep track of the wingnut id for me. I don’t really know any of them in person, and I live in one of the bluest areas you could find. You’d get the occasional asshole on here who would spew the latest right-wing bullshit, and then be gloriously smashed down—instructive and entertaining all at once. I would hate for the possibility of such fun to be eliminated altogether.

Also, I was out of it for a while…is this “Dennis” the Community “College” “History” “Instructor” Dennis? If so his mental state has really gone downhill. I can’t imagine he’s holding down a job any more—I guess that’s why he’s got nothing better to do, huh? Get some help, Dennis. Seriously.

Guy says to his doctor, “Doc, I dunno what’s wrong with me. Every time I see a bunch of old ladies sitting someplace, I have this uncontrollable urge to run over and start singing “What’s New Pussycat”.

Wherever I go I feel the need to recommend Scalzi’s Kitten Setting as a cure for Chronic Trollitosis. I reproduce his post about it here in full because it is funny.

My friend Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) has a comment policy, in which she reserves the right to take the postings of the most obnoxious trolls in her comment threads and change the words to something else entirely, subverting the message of the troll. The troll usually returns, outraged that his golden prose has been changed; that comment gets changed too. This continues until the troll realizes that there is nothing he can say that won’t get subverted, and eventually the troll runs away.

I was reminded of this yesterday when, after posting about a racist sexist homophobic dipshit, one of the racist sexist homophobic dipshit’s craven lickspittles popped up in the thread. This particular craven lickspittle is already on my moderation list for being a contentless troll, and I usually end up deleting his posts, but this one seems honor-bound to continue trying to be an asshole on my site, deletions or no. So I tried Jenny’s technique on him. This is how it went, and bear in mind I am paraphrasing the lickspittle’s original comments:

Craven Lickspittle: WAAAAARGLEBAAARGLE LOTS OF SPITTLE AND JACKASSERY I THINK “LIBERAL” IS AN INSULT I MAY BE TWELVE SMELL MY MANLY ARMPITS

My edit: I love hearts and flowers and pretty bows! I could dance in sparkly showers all the day long! Fa la la la la la!

My edit: When I think about all the kittens in the world that need to be cuddled, I just break down into wee little sobs.

Craven Lickspittle: YOU ARE SO MEAN WITH YOUR MEAN MEANNESS AND NOW I WILL RUN OFF TO ALL THE OTHER RACIST SEXIST HOMOPHOBIC DIPSHITS OVER AT MY FAVORITE TURD-LADEN CUDDLEPILE OF HATE AND TELL THEM HOW MEAN YOU ARE

My edit: Sometimes all I do with my day is brush my hair and sing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes in as high a voice as I can possibly manage.

And off he went, not to return.

A commenter in the thread called this “Setting the Mallet to ‘Kitten,’” which delighted me, so now I think of this technique as “the kitten setting.” Other commenters voiced concern about changing anyone’s remarks, even those of trolls, without making it clear that editing had taken place. I thought this was an excellent point, as the object is to subvert the troll, not deceive the rest of the commenters. So the Craven Lickspittle’s converted posts now sport an asterisk, which links to another comment in the thread where I explain what I’m doing.

Having a night to think about “the kitten setting,” here are my thoughts about it and its use here.

1. I don’t think I will probably use it a lot; my standard Malleting method works just fine for 99% of people who get out of line, and it’s easier and simpler to use.

2. However, for a particularly pernicious sort of troll, the sort with neither no interest in genuine participation, nor capability for taking a hint, “kittening” their posts seems like an effective tactic. So I’ll be keeping the kitten setting for now, with appropriate signifiers for everyone else (probably a link back to this very entry) that the alternation has taken place. It’s not the tactic of first resort, but it’s a tactic.

3. For any commenter outraged that his post has been thus kittened: Good, you sad little smudge of a human. If you’ve been kittened, your only purpose in coming here, in my estimation, was to shit all over the carpets. I like my carpets shit-free. So you get what you deserve. As the comment policy makes clear, I both expect intelligent, considerate commenting here and reserve the right to deal with comments how I see fit — and how I see fit now includes the kitten setting. If you don’t like it, don’t post comments. If the fear of being kittened dissuades various sorts of shitbags from posting risible nonsense here, I think everyone wins.

Feel free to discuss in the comment thread.

(also, the picture above is of Ghlaghghee, the very first day we got her, back in 2003.)

some definitely scheduled for later in the future (Giant Robot Apocalypse).

Whether I get to drive one or just get smooshed like a Moselle grape, I am totally down for the giant robot apocalypse. It totally sounds like more fun than the Christian Apocalypse or the Zombie Apocalypse or the Nuclear Apocalypse, or the Calypso Apocalypse.

Also, this is none of my business aside from being well on my way to Crazy Catladydom. I just found out that John Coles’ cat died and my morning is now befucked. (I mention it here because I think there are several people who also comment over on that blog.)

Yes, I’ve been following the story over at BalloonJuice. It’s horrible and sad. I teared up and all. And yet, am I the only guy who thinks, in the back of my mind: seriously, This Dude Needs to Get a Life!??!!!??!!??!!!??

I’m all for anything that more severely curtails the troll population. The Trayvon post was worst infestation of sociopaths I’ve seen outside of reality tv. Exactly what I didn’t need when I was close to putting in my application to the Ayres-Alinisky School for Killing Whitey (which would have been tough given my age and complexion).
So purge the trolls please.

In case you don’t know much about Citroen, I’d say this car was 20-30 years ahead of its time. It has a hydraulic suspension that’s probably the smoothest ride of anything short of a “magic carpet”. By moving a lever you can raise or lower the car on its suspension. Everything, including the clutch, is powered by the hydraulics.

My wife was beside herself because she’s wanted to ride in one since we saw one in Paris.

When he told me the difficulty and expense involved in the restoration I was scared off from ever owning one. My Desoto is about as technically advanced as a John Deere tractor and even Bubba down at the local Firestone dealer is able to work on it.

The B-52 was also a hydraulic nightmare. It had two main systems plus something like eight secondary systems. I lost one of the main systems one night and ended up landing with half my brakes. Used every inch of a 12,000 foot runway getting it stopped.

Yeah, it would be a shame to lose the ability to change one’s name at will, but it’s a small price to pay. I’ve seen that comment moderation w/privileged poster status used quite effectively to stop forum spam, and if it works on that, it should work on ordinary assholes too.

Every time I watch The Mentalist, all I can think about is: “How do you keep a 40-year-old car (his is a DS-21, I think), that was never imported here in the first place, running?” Especially given the esoteric nature of the Citroën mechanicals?

Just as an example: I remember when I was looking at the want ads for my first car, there was always 10 or 12 ads that said: “’64 DKW, no clutch, $40.” That was just a simple pneumatic clutch activated by a button on the shift lever, but nobody could fix it when it crapped out—and they were imported here. The Citroën give-the-shift-lever-a-little-push-and-it-works-the-clutch-and-shifts-into-the-next-gear-for-you-hydraulically mechanism must be literally impossible to repair in this country at this late date.

It was a fucking nightmare trying to get parts for a VW 412—how in the Hell would you do it for something like that?

Here’s my two cents. I like the open nature of commenting here. I like that drive-by trolls get a chance to spew whatever nonsensical claptrap they want and then get thoroughly beaten down by teh commentariat. I like the run-ins with folks like Teh Fool. The fact is trolls are part of Sadly, No!’s identity and you can bookmark that libs. Coach out!

I’m also fond of the fact that the bar to first comment for long-time lurkers is so low. Lots of us have probably forgotten that first nervous [Submit Comment] with all of the writing and rewriting and the long-time lurker first-time etc. Seeing the comment appear right away – there’s something really nice about that.

While the current deranged stalker is an odious turd, he is by no means the worst troll to have graced S,N!. He’s just very persistent. And apparently very difficult for some folks to ignore. And he’s definitely worn out whatever novelty or entertainment factor he might have brought.

Where do I stand? I’d weigh in on preserving the Wild West nature of comment threads as much as possible. Maybe more frequent scrubbing, but otherwise keeping the system as is. Not to imply that you need my permission for anything but, I’d be totes okay with delegating scrub-a-dub-dub duties to some of the regulars. I’d also be okay with disemvowellment and kittening.

My friend deliberately sought out an ID19 instead of a DS21 because it has a standard clutch and 4-speed shift (on the column) instead of the troublesome semi-automatic transmission.

Ah—that makes sense. I’ve always wanted to be able to raise the ground clearance all the way, put a prop under one corner, lower the ground clearance all the way, and have that wheel lift right off the ground, though—considering all the ’70s and ’80s cars where I couldn’t even figure out where to put the jack!

Since I have never administered any of the various commenting and moderation regimes I’ve experienced, any advice I offer would be half-assed. I don’t wanna suggest more work. Part of why I value Cerb’s work and look forward to Provider is that they’re interesting human beans, not bloggin machines.

Maintaining the status quo is a bad idea, though. While disrupting S,N! is a strange and pathetic hobby, it is apparently a real and persistent thing.

When I’m drunk I have trouble ignoring trolling and what others might perceive as such. I get the strategy and endorse it, but it would suck to never see or make a clever riposte. On the other hand, the business model here is to go find wingnut nonsense to mock; we don’t rely on trolls to provide opposing viewpoints or comedic fodder. And since viewpoints are seldom unique, esp. out there in Wingnuttia, little to nothing is lost.

The interpersonal disputes are utterly boring and out of place. I’m a pretty immature and self-absorbed guy for a 42-year-old, with obsessions and a big chip or two on my shoulder, but this shit is off the charts.

I wrote a diary about my car a while back. If I lived someplace like California I could almost drive it daily. Original parts are still available and some people are even making reproduction parts for them. I was able to get a brand new gas tank for it last year. It’s got enough power to keep up with freeway traffic – but not enough brakes to go with it.

Here in Ohio the road salt would it consume after one winter. Even in the rain it leaks like sieve. We got caught in a thunderstorm once and it was “Man the pumps! We’re taking on water!”

Apparently they leaked even when they were new. Chrysler rushed their ’57 models into production so that they could get the new body styles out ahead of the competition. The build quality on a 57 is noticeably worse than on a ’56.

It was a fucking nightmare trying to get parts for a VW 412—how in the Hell would you do it for something like that?

See, this is the promise of sterolithography, aka 3-D printing. The enthusiast community could make digital models of a part, print it in plastic. If that’s could enough, as it would be for buttons and knobs, you’re all set. More advanced sterolithography could make metal parts or the plastic parts could be used as a blank for casting in aluminum or steel. But goddamn libertarian gun-loving jerkasses are doing their level best to get the whole technology strangled in its crib by making zip guns with it.

And if you’re unlucky, it explodes. Because this gun is 3D-printed, all of its key parts are made out of plastic. It’s also the only gun where all the key parts are made out of plastic, because making a gun out of plastic is really goddamn stupid. Guns become hot when you shoot them, and plastic melts when it gets hot. This means that the barrel tends to deform when you shoot it, and the gun misfires at the drop of a hat. Oh, and they can only load the gun with tiny .380 caliber bullets, because if they try it with anything bigger, again, it will just explode.

So if I understand correctly … we have several guns for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. A 3-D printer costs more than a gun. The plastic gun’s only advantage is that it has no serial number, paper/electronic trail, or registration? I can think of ways to at least partially neutralize those advantages.

I know 3-D printed guns are a sideshow. But as the capability of 3-D printers improve, as they become capable of working with metals like steel aluminum and titanium, and that capability is what the makers of these printers aspire to, it will become possible to make guns that aren’t a joke. A device that can make a piston can make a pistol. I am worried that gun and weapon fetishists will poison the public’s perception of this technology and keep us roughly where we are today, in that specialized manufacturing will be unavailable at a reasonable price to the home inventor or car enthusiast on a budget.

They’re a sideshow for the moment, but I would expect them to only replace the current loads of imported military rifles and stolen/hijacked weapons. I don’t think they’ll have much of an impact on the number of guns out there. Unless someone is making a profit making them (illegally), nobody is going to invest in the equipment and technology.

Also, I was out of it for a while…is this “Dennis” the Community “College” “History” “Instructor” Dennis? If so his mental state has really gone downhill. I can’t imagine he’s holding down a job any more—I guess that’s why he’s got nothing better to do, huh? Get some help, Dennis. Seriously

If 3-D printers ever try to make metal parts, I suspect they’ll be like the original engine in the Crosley Hotshot—laminated like a transformer core, so it was like it had hundreds of head gaskets waiting to start leaking—only it would be trillions of head gaskets instead.

“Sadly, the “ignore” policy hasn’t really been tried here. All it takes is one person to take the bait.”

But more often than not, it takes no persons to take the bait. At least, that’s happened at plenty of other sites and public forums that I’ve frequented over the years.

I remember one particularly stupid and persistent asshole at the forum being run by the Nation’s website some years ago. The regulars there studiously ignored him – there was, shall we say, a larger amount of self conscious high-mindedness there than you find at many comment sections; after all, this was the online version of the Nation magazine, fer Chrissakes – and this didn’t deter the fucking loon one little bit. One afternoon he posted something like 70 posts in a row, all of which were a mixture of crude sexual insults directed at the Clintons and childish, self-aggrandizing “Lookit me!” posturings. When one of the other posters interrupted the ego-fest to wearily inquire what he thought of Newt Gingrich, who, of course, was Clinton’s equal in sexual shenanigans (and who, naturally, was a fuck of a lot worse in many ways), Asshole’s response was immediate: “Nope. That never happened. It was an invention of the liberal mdeia!”

I’m only an occasional contributor here, so perhaps my vote shouldn’t carry much weight, but I have no problem with more aggressive pest control. Watching the scum get smacked down is a very limited sport, IMO. It can be fun at first, but the entertainment value quickly wears out.

I think that was The Truth, who is probably now The Authentic and perhaps the nym-stealer/never-the-same-nym twice troll. I suppose under the “all one guy” theory it could be the same person as “Dennis,” but under the name Dennis he seems to have or at least be able to fake more brains than that one.

But more often than not, it takes no persons to take the bait.

Yeah, the nym-stealer answers himself, sometimes more than once from different nyms. One can only hope eventually all that baiting will make him go blind.

Ok, I don’t seem to be making my point very well. I like the idea of 3-D printing. I like the idea of being able to take some cad files, and some silver dollars and going to the neighborhood Kinko’s and printing myself some oyster forks that match my mom’s silverware pattern that hasn’t been made in 60 years. I like the idea of HP home office Thingjet that can whip out washers and gaskets to fix a broken appliance, I like the idea of printing out all the parts to a good watch and trying to put it together, and when I understand it better, tweaking the design so I could have a mickey mouse Rolex, or a Rolls Royce Griffon engine to put in my homebuilt airplane that because of 3-D printing, is a whole lot easier to make. I want LARPers to be able to print out suits of armor so they finally get some exercise when they play dress up and I want mechanics and repair people not to have to wait 3 weeks to get a part that is only found on the back shelf of a warehouse in Italy where everyone is on vacation until next month.

So I am upset when I learn that basement dwelling gun fetishizing mouth breathers are making poor quality weapons for triple the price of buying a brand new handgun and scaring uninformed legislators into banning or mandating crippling DRM into 3D printers just when the field is moving out of college labs and high price industry rapid prototyping shops into the realm of the hobbyist.

If 3-D printers ever try to make metal parts, I suspect they’ll be like the original engine in the Crosley Hotshot—laminated like a transformer core, so it was like it had hundreds of head gaskets waiting to start leaking—only it would be trillions of head gaskets instead.

Some work is being done with powdered metals being fused into shape on a moving plaform. The lasers fuse a slice of the design together, the plaform is lowered incrementally, more powdered metal is applied and the next layer is fused into shape. This process repeats until you have a solid part. So your your million head gasket engine scenario is unlikely.

For the rest of your life you are going to feel what its like to be a black man in America.

You will feel people stare at you. Judging you for what you feel are unfair reasons. You will lose out on getting jobs for something that you feel is outside your control. You will believe yourself to be an upstanding citizen and wonder why people choose not to see that.

People will cross the street when they see you coming. They will call you hurtful names. It will drive you so insane some days that you will want to scream at the top of your lungs. But you will have to wake up the next day, put on a firm look and push through life.

I bet you never thought that by shooting a black male you’d end up inheriting all his struggles.

“Sadly, the “ignore” policy hasn’t really been tried here. All it takes is one person to take the bait.”

“That being said, I really miss the way things used to be—I depended on this blog to keep track of the wingnut id for me. I don’t really know any of them in person, and I live in one of the bluest areas you could find. You’d get the occasional asshole on here who would spew the latest right-wing bullshit, and then be gloriously smashed down—instructive and entertaining all at once. I would hate for the possibility of such fun to be eliminated altogether.”

“The only downside to needing a pre-approved comment is that it would mean the end of changing usernames to make a joke.”

You guys are lucky. If you ever got a troll who was as intelligent, hell, half as intelligent as he is malicious, he would run you ragged. Not that that the two aren’t usually mutually exclusive, of course

And wow, your self-perception as the defender of conservatism. Gosh, how did you prevail over all the applicants for the job? Or maybe they just aren’t as brave as you?

I love his theory that the strawliberals in his head are going to conservative blogs and spreading mayhem, then coming back here to gloat; and putting up bogus reviews of conservative books on Amazon—the very things the Koch Brothers are paying shitstains like him to do! Projection, thy name is wingnut!

I love his theory that the strawliberals in his head are going to conservative blogs and spreading mayhem, then coming back here to gloat; and putting up bogus reviews of conservative books on Amazon—the very things the Koch Brothers are paying shitstains like him to do! Projection, thy name is wingnut!

Wait, you aren’t making the fat Soros cash to do all that like the rest of us? Go to the secret liberal control website (you know the one) use the password ‘Iluminati’ and get on the gravy train!

And certainly not at all like your conspiracy theory unsupported by eyewitness testimony that GZ had no visible injuries the night of the shooting.

We’ve all seen the fucking tapes, asshole. There wasn’t a mark on him the night of the murder. They only appeared a few days later when he decided he’d better think up some story about how his helpless unarmed prey fought back.

Helmut, in the case of powdered metals, you have to ask yourself, how are people going to get the stuff in the first place. Until someone develops a machine that can take on scrap metal and one end and produce powdered metal pure enough to use in a 3-D printer, the stuff can be monitored the way that fertilizer sales are monitored.

So I am upset when I learn that basement dwelling gun fetishizing mouth breathers are making poor quality weapons for triple the price of buying a brand new handgun and scaring uninformed legislators into banning or mandating crippling DRM into 3D printers just when the field is moving out of college labs and high price industry rapid prototyping shops into the realm of the hobbyist.

I get where you’re going with that. I think the induced panic over home-made guns (which aren’t all that uncommon NOW) won’t last long–and the idea of something taking away so-called freedom where guns are concerned is essentially a dead issue for the moment. But I can totally see them installing all sorts of DRM in those things–with or without federal legislation.

There’s oodles of ways for mods to triumph over trolls. Metafilter makes the population of its threads pony up fives bucks to be a member before commenting. Exiledonline.com rewrites trolling comments without mercy. Driftglass uses simple pre-approval before something appears on a thread over at his joint.

The Patron Saint of Bitchslapping is officially on indefinite sabbatical in a Malaysian SubGenius ashram, desperately endeavouring to form a guidance-beacon mindlink with a flotilla of Pleasure-Saucers loitering on the far side of Betelgeuse … & has good reasons for doing so. Intellectually punching down too much can eventually lead to chronic psychic dysentery. Not to mention that feeding a troll its own ass on a stick isn’t tenable – or fun – when they’re too tweaked out to parse the context of what is happening.

Thanks for the suggestion, troll. I used to have an Amazon account back in the day when you could have one based on cookies before they introduced mandatory registration into their system. I’ll register there today, won’t buy anything there of course. Henceforth, I’ll post a bad review every time I see a comment from you here, or when I feel like it, and there won’t be a d*mn thing you could do about it.

Protip: Use Republican-sponsored websites to sent letters to the editor electronically. Just rewrite or replace the text they suggest you send(I wouldn’t go too far, don’t just replace “Socialism sucks!” with “Socialism rocks out!”) and then the fun begins.

I’ve noticed that many people don’t share my enthusiasms, concerns, and priorities. Not only that, but they don’t seem to know, or care! So here’s the plan: I’ll inform everyone when the music has a good beat. You’ll dance to it. I’ll criticize your dancing, while switching stations on a whim. Don’t bet on being amused, learning much, or becoming a better person, at least until you’ve made a decades-study of the wild hairs up my butt. You’re welcome.

One good thing about Disqus, on the other hand, is that you can edit your comments after the fact.

That’s true of a lot of WordPress blogs, too. This one is unique in its stripped-down nature—presumably that’s to keep the page from taking 15 minutes to load like one afflicted with a full implementation of WordPress.

I think (ROTFLMSJAO btw) the ethnic slur you are reaching for is “Jew boy”. Are you sure you’re a conservative? You are not very well versed in bigotry. Whatsamatter, don’t you support plucky little Israel?

Lucas, schmookas—I used to be afflicted with F(ucked)O(ver)R(aw)D(eal)s. It was loads of fun blipping the starter 50 or 100 times to try to get the rubbing block exactly on the point of the cam so you could adjust the gap.

First time I adjusted the dwell on a Chevy while the engine was running just by sticking a screwdriver into the distributor, I liked to creamed my jeans.

You know, it’s really amazing. Even 10 years ago, assholes like this would try to disguise their true feelings with various sorts of obfuscation. Now, an adult decides to hunt down and kill a black teenager, for the crime of being black, picks one out, stalks and murders him, and it’s “Justice, fuck yeah!”

Some day I will tell you the story about the SuperHawk fairing. When I needed to get to the engine it seemed like it was impossible! In order to get near the engine, the fairing had to be taken apart into lots of tiny, flimsy, plastic-tabbed pieces, sure to break apart, especially after any length of service. (UV, engine heat) And it took forever.
Then I got the manual, and it turns out that if one disconnects three wires, and removes four large, easily accesed screws, the entire fairing comes off as one piece!! And goes back on just as easily.

But I probably won’t tell the story, cause it makes me look like such a fool.

I never liked how Chevy used to hide the distributor on the back of the engine. Some of them could be pretty hard to get to.

Hell, even the Chevy II engine, when they turned it sideways for the Citation, etc., just by pure bad luck, the distributor wound up between the engine and the firewall, way down the side. That was a bitch. But at least breaker points were gone by that time.

I can just see them all, huddled under the abbutment, listening to the traffic thundering over their heads, looking at each other from under beetling brows and saying: “I just don’t understand it! We troll that site, hundreds of times a day, and yet their web-stats just keep going up! Where the hell are all those ‘hits’ coming from?”
Then he shrugs, puts it down to liberal control of the Intertubes, and goes back to tending their gruff billy-goats or whatever.

Many hair trends fizzle out faster than the latest one-hit-wonder on a music countdown, but there are hairstyles that transcend generations. We put together a list of the 10 most-timeless cuts that guarantee a good hair day for years to come. Say good-bye to the cringe-worthy ‘dos of old photos past, and click through to see the hairstyles that never look dated!

You know, it’s really amazing. Even 10 years ago, assholes like this would try to disguise their true feelings with various sorts of obfuscation. Now, an adult decides to hunt down and kill a black teenager, for the crime of being black, picks one out, stalks and murders him, and it’s “Justice, fuck yeah!”

Yeah. I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. Sickos like that have always been among us, but social pressure kept them (mostly) quiet and isolated. But since the GOP has decided to let the TPers out to play unfettered and unashamed, it’s become kind of mainstream and (in certain circles) acceptable.

On a different note, I think _________ and the Nymjacking Trolls could be a band name. Solo act, of course, playing to irritated audiences.

.” But since the GOP has decided to let the TPers out to play unfettered and unashamed, it’s become kind of mainstream and (in certain circles) acceptable.”

My friend, they have been working hard on this ever since the era of Civil Rights legislation. That some bigoted Americans would posit Civil Rights as a zero-sum process (whatever he gets in the way of rights must somehow have been taken from me!) was inevitable, given America’s history. But that our entire political and media world would turn itself inside out chasing, validating and multiplying this puerile resentment and its attendant moral exceptionism, sickens me.
I’m 60-something ( I forget) and it’s always seemed to me that all that Civil Rights requires of the huge majority of Americans is no sacrifice, just a modicum of good will. To pervert that tiny bit of good will into an affront, an injury requiring relief, has been one of the most sickening things I’ve ever seen.

Another word you don’t seem to know the meaning of. But I can understand that. After all, what might be the mind-work of a few seconds, about the same time it takes to type it, can be for others the product of tortured days of intense concentration.

Speaking of which, I got a Nexus 7 this weekend. The Shimano IGH that is. It’s on a wheel with 700 x 32 light touring tires. The crankset has a single cog and it’s a hybrid frame, so the thing looks kinda like a fixie (or maybe a single speed), despite having a 245% gearing range. Although I guess the caliper brakes give it away.

My previous was this el cheapo folder I was using to get to the train station (only folding bikes allowed through Union Station at rush hour) which was not much fun to ride.

Always the same pattern. A few commenters make barbed comments directed at Dennis, which he can’t handle, and then the shower of bigotry, scatology and homophobia starts. You can set your chronometer by it.

It’s like a horse and carriage or rather, love and marriage. You can’t have one without the other. (Today is my 23rd. anniversary.)

Okay, you got me, I don’t really know. I’m not sure how it works, but I was married in ’89.
But today is the day, lo, those many years ago, we lifted our veils and lisped our shy “Wilt thou’s?” to each other under the clergyman’s benevolent yet august eye. Yes, he had a glass eye. He didn’t want us to know, but it came out in the conversation.
Ah, the memories of that special day! I can still feel the rope around my neck, and the chilly steel of her Dad’s 12 guage against my ribs. The old folks wished us well.

The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped.

a couple of years ago i bought hubbkf a used kayak on the advice of one of his friends…who obviously thought hubbkf to be slimmer than he really is…the opening is such a snug fit that hubbkf is afeared to man it in the river in case he flips over and cannot get out…i’ve offered to do a test run with him, but he doesn’t trust me, apparently…

I’m sorry, that was just a warning that the day was on the way. Today is the day. Ah, what a callow youth of 37 I was, virginal, dewy even! It’s true, man. But now I have been hardened in the matrimonial kiln, forged in the furnace of the wedded abyss, and have emerged a tougher, finer man for it. I have the keen senses and lithe, cat-like reponses of a man used to avoiding flying crockery along with the air of existential despair typical of one who deals with mothers-in-law.
Ah, and what a broth of a girl she was, with skin like damask, and a waist you could span with an embroidery hoop. Anyway, I spent my honeymoon trying, but she finally got crochetty about it.,

Yes, a little bit of kyacking in the late-afternoon, and then a quiet evening spent going over our library of antique credit-card bills, overdue-mortgage-payment notices, estoppels, collection notices, liens, and writs of garnishment, some of them rare first editions.

If we must engage trolls, please be funnier. Simple insults are not enough.

What about complex insults? Or surreal insults, like “I think Jovial Bob is a yutz. Go stomp an armadillo, you chloroform-sniffer!”

(The aforementioned Jovial Bob Stine, then the editor of Scholastic’s teen-targeted book-club-azine Bananas, responded to that observation in the mag’s lettercol with “It’s so nice to get fan mail!” He later pupated into R.L. Stine, author of the Fear Street and Goosebumps series. This has been another *WHAM!* Useless Fact™.)

You’re Mr5s Borgia, too? Well, in that case, could you sort of hold it back to something that’ll just make me hurl, or give me the runs? The thought of my demise is having a profound and serious effect on her. She looks ten years younger already.

“Austin loomis why don’t you go fuck an armadillo fuck face, IHATE all you trolls, and guess what I could buy and sell all you pathetic liberals. You all should and will be shining my shoes real soon”

If it’s always (and it always is) projection, we have a Fellini, a Bergman, among us. Abstract, stream-of-unconscious, symbolist trolling! Well, once you’ve exhausted FAUX-realism, where else did it have to go? Very modern.

The little bit of hair that armadillos have does not improve their appearance. Pangolins are cooler, I guess. I am inspired to learn more about them.

I was wondering if anyone ever saw fit to shave a chimp or an orang all over. It’d be animal abuse, you wouldn’t catch me doing it. But I see those joke pics, with the chimp in a suit for ex., and I wonder how he’d look groomed like a human … There’s no point Googling “hairless ape”, and I’m not trying “shaved chimp”, at least not at work, if ever.

Good grief, I hope that Nate Silver is wrong about Republicans having an even chance of winning back the senate. Their obstructionism while in the minority cannot become the dems’ tactic in turn, because dems will want to legislate and have a functional government.

I can only hope that the GOP’s intra-party chaos continues. And in general they have a surfeit of shitty candidates. Maybe it’s safe to assume that they’ll blow 2-3 opportunities in ways that Stats Boy can’t account for.

I actually looked at quite a few naked apes when doing research for my drawing of a White Ape for my Martian Fauna series. I ended up deciding to give them a cloaca instead of having their genitals swing around comically as they ran.

<i.I can only hope that the GOP’s intra-party chaos continues. And in general they have a surfeit of shitty candidates. Maybe it’s safe to assume that they’ll blow 2-3 opportunities in ways that Stats Boy can’t account for.

jesus h…i am fervently hoping their candidates are shitty enough that it means the war on uteri is brought to heel…holy crap, i cannot believe some of the legislation that has been passed lately…and in light of recent events…gah…! i feel an epic bitchfestrant coming on…

I had the idea that any commenter can put in a candidate kittenisation to a troll’s comment and the best would be promoted to actual kittenisation. Actual replies to the troll’s post would be deleted and persistent feeders could be banned 🙂

I actually looked at quite a few naked apes when doing research for my drawing of a White Ape for my Martian Fauna series. I ended up deciding to give them a cloaca instead of having their genitals swing around comically as they ran.

I shoulda known you’d have this kind of forbidden knowledge. In my mind the subject is related to pulp fantasy and sci-fi, in which the theme of evolution is handled loosely at best, or completely a-scientifically. So in R.E. Howard and Lovecraft, human populations can devolve, even relatively quickly; more importantly from a fiction-writing POV, evolution and devolution run parallel to societal and racial ascendancy and degeneracy — a distinctly nonscientific take on the reasons for, and significance of, genetic changes.

I saw an ad recently, offering testing to determine how much neanderthal ascestry the client has, if any. I was reminded of artist’s renditions, in print and TV, of what a neanderthal would look like, walking our modern streets in our clothes and groomed like us.

That naked chimp’s torso looks really human from that angle. He looks awfully strong, but not obviously nonhuman. Speaking only of parts.

That would have “gross HP,” the most the engine could make on a test bed, without accessories, no muffler, … It was probably around oh, maybe 250 or maybe a little more in today’s numbers.

Just FYI, around 1972 they changed to “net hp” which was the number when there’s a water pump, alternator, etc. In 2005 we went to SAE hp which eliminated most of the “loopholes” in the earlier test spec and required an independent observer.

“Just FYI, around 1972 they changed to “net hp” which was the number when there’s a water pump, alternator, etc. In 2005 we went to SAE hp which eliminated most of the “loopholes” in the earlier test spec and required an independent observer.”

I saw an ad recently, offering testing to determine how much neanderthal ascestry the client has, if any. I was reminded of artist’s renditions, in print and TV, of what a neanderthal would look like, walking our modern streets in our clothes and groomed like us.

A friend of mine had his genome sequenced and he found out that he was in the 99th percentile of people with Neaderthal ancestry. He’s a little shorter than average, slightly stocky, and has a long, well shaped head. He’s very proud of his Neaderthal heritage, and he always breaks into a big smile when he regales someone about it.

Years ago, in the midst of my divorce, I was sitting in therapy, again bemoaning the injustices of divorce in Minnesota. I was beyond frustrated at the lack of enforcement of court orders, at the assumption that moms are better parents than dads, and that no one seemed to think that my case was as urgent as I thought it was.

“Stop calling it the ‘Family Justice System,’” my therapist said.

“What?” I asked. “That’s what it’s called.”

“I know,” she responded, “But it’s not about justice, at least not as you understand justice. I suggest that you instead refer to it as the ‘Family Court System.’”

And so, I have. For the past five years, I’ve disciplined myself to call it the Family Court System and the Hennepin County Family Court Building (even though, as you can see in the photo above, the county has not followed suit).

As an Enneagram 8, justice is a driving force for me — maybe the driving force. (Nota bene, I don’t claim that my sense of justice is perfect, nor that I always see justice rightly.) So a lack of justice really gets under my skin — I’ve often described the process of getting divorced (with kids involved) in Hennepin County like being caught in a dream, one where you’re in danger and screaming at the top of your lungs, but no sound is coming out of your throat, and everyone just goes about their own business, unable to hear you.

I think there are a lot of people in our country who feel the same way this weekend, after the George Zimmerman acquittal. The death of Trayvon Martin has seemingly gone unpunished (however, there are more lawsuits pending against him, the federal government is considering charging him, and he will surely be a pariah for decades to come).

I am no expert in criminal legal matters. But I know what it’s like to be involved in our court system. I know the frustration of being caught in a web of legal technicalities and a byzantine bureaucracy. I know what it’s like to be completely reliant upon high-priced attorneys to wade through that thicket.

Ours is not a justice system. It’s a court system. If we can discipline ourselves to acknowledge that, it will benefit our mental health.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t keep fighting for justice. We should. Indeed, we need to, for Trayvon and for children who don’t get to see their fathers and for others who are caught in the system that is a court system and not a justice system. But we need to be realistic about the ability of our court system to deliver justice, and we need to look for other avenues of justice in our society.

Whether I get to drive one or just get smooshed like a Moselle grape, I am totally down for the giant robot apocalypse. It totally sounds like more fun than the Christian Apocalypse or the Zombie Apocalypse or the Nuclear Apocalypse, or the Calypso Apocalypse.

Del Toro is trying to promote Pacific Rim as different, but somehow in the spirit of the Japanese giant monster movies.

As for me, I feel like a million bucks after practicing jazz standards for two hours to CDs will drinking a six-pack of good IPA.

B^4: nice anecdote about your unusually-prehistoric friend. I want the test. My mother has been paying some of these newfangled genetic testing companies. She’s retired and has the time and money, and besides, she’s surviving a supposedly fatal neurological condition that could be hereditary … So far I don’t give a shit about my genes except for the neanderthal quotient.

If I was a gambling man I’d arrange some wagers around everybody’s neanderthal heritage. Sounds like there are gonna be some surprises. People might throw down a grand thinking “that guy is the spitting image of Barney Rubble” and lose it only to find its them that’s the fucking caveman.

‘where’s the outrage?!?! oh, that’s right because a black killed a white, so the media WON’T COVER IT because it’s always wah, wah….poor blacks!

Huh, a Google search turns up a CNN story about the two being charged with felony murder etc, as well as 129,000 other results. So, media coverage, two people charged and in custody, the justice system chugging along doing its thing including an ongoing investigation, maybe that’s why there’s no outrage?

True, baby fat’s not for eating. It’s the main component of young ladies I shouldn’t lust after. Not that my passion knows any bounds. I’m like a vampire up in here, drying up, forever. Or for the half-life of a haunted hard-on, whichever cums first. A poltergeist humping a body-pillow long after his dick’s dried up and blown away. Because let’s face it, I won’t get enough. That writing’s on the mirror, backwards.

On kittening and disemvoweling: These would be amazing and awesome automated solutions if our pet troll wasn’t changing IP addresses every 3 posts or so. The same thing that makes cleanups necessary makes cool universal solutions also impossible.

I could change the current clean-up protocol to kittenize his posts, but beyond that, that’s sort of the best we can do.

i think a much better way to spend it would be to show a certain someone how to i.d. plants and forage…

I would love to get back to Minnesota (one of my college roommates lives in the Twin Cities, plus paleo lives there), but in the meantime, check out Green Deane‘s youtube channel. In the meantime, if you find any wood sorrel, it is also super delicious.

One day, there was this kitten who was soooo sleepy, he couldn’t stay awake and he fell asleep right into his saucer of milk and he got milk all over his face and whiskers and it was so cute, so cute, so cute!!!!!

ZRM, I’m sorry. No offense was intended or implied. I just think that I would be able to enjoy a giant robot apocalypse in a way that I wouldn’t enjoy a zombie apocalypse. And here’s why: none of my friends or family are giant robots. I could fight giant robots all day, and not worry that I am hurting anyone I loved or respected, and that when finally the ammunition for my railgun is depleted, my jetpack is out of gas and my electro-sword is bent and broken and I am cornered like a rat in an urban box canyon and the metal teeth are closing in, I won’t be turned to hunt and kill those that I love.

bbfk. Ha. You have no idea. I hate to swap gadgets just because they’re a little dodgy. I actually enjoy making them pull their socks up and stop being silly. But that was not an amusing challenge. That was an electronic finger in my eye.

Also, I didn’t even get into the demons that have entered my laptop. It is either time to get me one of them tablet thingies or go back to chisel and sandstone.

‘Robot’ is becoming one of those diluted terms like ‘Artificial Intelligence.’ A giant piloted anthropomorphic automaton is not a ‘robot.’ It’s a ‘mech.’

I meant what I wrote, and I wrote what I meant. I don’t put limits on the giant robot apocalypse. Your so-called ‘mechs’ aren’t robots. They aren’t autonomous. Robots are autonomous. Giant robots could be anthropomorphic, but they wouldn’t have to be. They could be tanks, submarines or airplanes or spacecraft, or something else completely. You might use a ‘mech’ to fight a giant robot and thereby get your mech involved in the giant robot apocalypse, but it still wouldn’t be the mech apocalypse, it would be the giant robot apocalypse, because that is what would be trying to destroy humanity and perhaps all biological life.

Are you entirely certain they aren’t little robots under a thin layer of flesh?

No, I am not. but that doesn’t matter. They aren’t giant robots, and it’s a giant robot apocalypse. I suppose even in a giant robot apocalypse there might be some smaller robots helping out… damn it. maybe it does matter. I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

The fact is, kittening is only the latest liberal faceism. The propieters are the real trolls, insighting people to post here and then twisting their words like stripper’s nipples at a Greek bachelor party.

Wait. Haven’t seen teh film yet, but isn’t there a Jaeger AI that interfaces with the mecha? Just because there are pilots doesn’t mean that the thing stops being a robot. It’s like saying that since the giant robots require neurally linked two pilots, each individual pilot stops being a human being. The jaegers are quite clearly and obviously giant robots. Piloted giant robots, but robots nonetheless.

Thunderbird rules. I monitor four email accounts with it, and have been doing so for nearly a decade. It’s one of the small handful of FOSS apps that have never frustrated me or failed to live up to its duty.

Whatever. You just have limited imagination. As if robots can’t work collaboratively with non automated agents. Heck, that even goes against the very nature of robots.

It is a team – two pilots, a complex mechanical construct with all sorts of advances and automated processes and a remote artificial intelligence providing requisite operational support and telemetry. That mechanical construct component is obviously a robot.

Your Roomba example – someone needs to turn it on. Thus it has an operator.

Gmail, IMAP. But as bughunter says Thunderbird and any other decent mail client will know what to do to hook you up with your Gmail address. Make sure to leave the messages on the server: no reason to erase them.

“The best way to deal with trolls is TO NOT FUCKING FEED THEM. I’m looking at you Mooser and you DA. If you play the game you lose. We wouldn’t HAVE a troll problem if you’d both stop losing the game.”

If you would, for whatsoever reason, prefer that I not comment here, please be brave enough to just come out and say so, allright? I don’t have a damn thing to do with whatever the fuck this site has gotten itself into. I didn’t bring them here, and I really doubt they will leave with me.

And as I have repeatedly stated, I am not so proud of or concerned with my comments that I have the slightest objection to them being removed, deleted, or otherwise defaced.
And frankly, I find a good hot bath, or even a cold shower (both of which I have extensive facilities for at Moosehall) just as good as even the most Jacuzzied, teak panelled, hot tub. With nobody pawing at me under the surface, and no bubbles except my own.

I disagree. I think that defining characteristic of robots is autonomy. If you can load it up with missiles and top off the fuel tank and slap it on the ass and tell it to come back when Godzilla is dead, it’s a robot no matter what shape it is. If someone has to climb inside and drive, it isn’t a robot. Major Kong’s plane, even on autopilot isn’t a robot, it doesn’t roll itself out of the hanger to the gate, patiently wait while the crates are loaded, roll out to the runway by itself, take off by itself, fly by itself, land by itself, and taxi to the terminal by itself to be unloaded and return to the hangar by itself. Once it can do that it is a robot.

We are, by nature timid, shy and reclusive. All it would take is one word from the site’s owner. But I don’t take orders from some adipose aleopiciac in a hot tub.
Hell, all it’ll take is one word from you, do you wannaq give it? Please tell me now, shall I stay or shall I go?

B^4, if you have any problems with what I’ve written here in the past or on this very thread, please let me know so that The Troll Who Is Not To Be Named can have their mind set at rest on this important issue.

Hmmm. I think our issue with robots is the difference between two “auto” words. Autonomy and automated. I personally don’t view autonomy as a requirement for robots. In fact, I see autonomy as one of the primary boundaries of when robots stop being robots.

IMO, a Roomba is not autonomous. Nor is a mechanical spot welding arm on an automated car assembly line. These things are not making decisions for themselves, despite the “turn around before bumping into a wall” behaviour they exhibit.

Mooser, you completely missed the point. I enjoy your comments. It would be a loss for us if you stopped commenting altogether. But what are you stoopid or something? The troll is baiting you. You think you cleverly destroyed him in a battle of wit. You fucking idiot – the troll doesn’t care what you say, it only cares that you respond. Ignore it completely and it will soon move on to another site where it can get sustenance from people as unaware as you. The troll is here ONLY BECAUSE YOU GIVE IT ATTENTION.

So no, I don’t want you to stop commenting. Just stop reacting like Pavlov’s dogs to the bait. Don’t take the bait. Its appearances will become infrequent and IF NO ONE TAKES THE BAIT they will be brief. Eventually he’ll give up entirelyb Capisce?

Dennis, get this and get it straight, cause it’ll be the last time: No matter what slight, easily adjustable, soon-to-be-solved-with-handshakes-and-drinks-all-around little contrempts I may have with other posters, there is one thing I have found to be true: You are a piece of shit, and responsible for most, if not all, of the trolling, and even if you weren’t, non-response is the appropriate course. Go whine in hell.

Consider one of the multiple epic complaints of bigoted conservatards – “Press 1 for English”.

An automated answering machine. Is that a robot? I mean, it really is only a user interface for callers – solely there to be operated by meaty fleshbags. Or is it a robot since it essentially automatically replicates an actual human being on the other end provided you limit the range of stimulus it needs to respond to (i.e. like not putting a Roomba in the lake or sending a goat down an automated assembly line or move an AGV outside of its narrowly defined operating area).

We are, by nature timid, shy and reclusive. All it would take is one word from the site’s owner. But I don’t take orders from some adipose aleopiciac in a hot tub.
Hell, all it’ll take is one word from you, do you wannaq give it? Please tell me now, shall I stay or shall I go?

I MEANT YOUR GIANT CLOPPING HOOVES!!!

‘Going quietly into that good night‘ would have been better. Look it up. No wonder you want me gone.

also, too…g-dang it, i knew i was missing something! but hey, i haven’t tagfailed today…

IMO, a Roomba is not autonomous. Nor is a mechanical spot welding arm on an automated car assembly line. These things are not making decisions for themselves, despite the “turn around before bumping into a wall” behaviour they exhibit.

But they are making decisions for themselves. They aren’t self aware, but a welding robot needs to be able to tell when a part is in position to start welding and be smart enough detect an error condition and stop before it hurts itself or a passer by, and a roomba is making more sophisticated navigation decisions, clean in a straight line, turn when it hits a wall continue until all of the surface has been cleaned, then return to the charger. It’s all programmed behavior, but once you start it going, it is making decisions. They are sensing their environment and making decisions based on that, how much more sophisticated do they need to be?

it doesn’t roll itself out of the hanger to the gate, patiently wait while the crates are loaded, roll out to the runway by itself, take off by itself, fly by itself, land by itself, and taxi to the terminal by itself to be unloaded and return to the hangar by itself. Once it can do that it is a robot.

Don’t rush it. I’m hoping to make it to retirement before we have those.

Also, I didn’t even get into the demons that have entered my laptop. It is either time to get me one of them tablet thingies or go back to chisel and sandstone.

I got me one of those tablet thingies, and it sure is handy. Don’t have to wait for it to go through its bootup (unless I really turn it all the way off), easy to carry around, I can do quite a bit on it. However. It’s all touchscreen control, so no mouseover, and if the touchscreen is feeling the slightest bit cranky, it may not click a link, or it might use o for p. In mail, mine can attach image files, but no other kind (it has no trouble detaching files of any type in mail). So, though it came with a word processing program, I can’t mail the result out, by any method other than cutting and pasting. It does have a slot for a micro SD, so there is that.

Also, you may have troubles at some sites. Despite people who should know swearing mobiles are the wave of the future, many sites haven’t thought their execution all the way through. A lot of sites let you switch between the mobile version and the full or web version, but some of them only think they do: they have an auto-mobile detector that switches you right back, so you are unable to access anything beyond their stripped down for mobile version, which often means you can’t even tell them. And don’t get me started on Disqus. Even if you switch to the full version on your mobile, it’s still a mobile platform, and lst time I checked (yesterday), their revamp still doesn’t allow you to view comments, never mind post any. On my iThingy, I can’t even see if there are any comments. On my Samsung tablet, I can see the number of comments, but not the comments. I’ve told Disqus about this, but they obviously didn’t read my message.

Because I write main-page posts about it, and delete it’s comments?
Because I consider it a big problem? Are you saying I brought it here?

But please believe me Pup, after what I saw yesterday, I am more than willing, eager even, to try it your way. Non-response is indeed the course to take at this time, and I will stick to it. Please forgive me for waiting till I told him he’s “a piece of shit”, Every so often I get angry enough to lose my well-bred, okay, white bread, diffidence.

They are sensing their environment and making decisions based on that, how much more sophisticated do they need to be?

It’s a fake sort of autonomy, based on an impersonation of self-awareness. Although I will admit that it is difficult to draw a line.

Regardless, a cars’ anti-lock braking system does the same – decisions made based on environmental inputs. Does that make ABS robotic? And how does this definition work such that the Jaegers don’t qualify?

Yes, it took me a bit, (but then I spent my entire elementary school years in the “slow” or “track 3” classes) and I indulged myself in mocking it, but I am by now as thouroughly disgusted with it as you are.

I loved my Roomba. It was very handy. I could program it to , say, go and clean on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays at noon, one, and 1:30 if I wanted. I only had to keep it clean and empty the bin. It would tell me if I forgot, and would yell for help if it got stuck. I

‘m sure you’ve noticed the past tense. When the battery starts getting empty, it heads back to its charging station. When I first got it, that meant it would go for about 75 to 90 minutes a session. After a year or so, the battery wasn’t holding a charge, and I was only getting about 15 minutes a session. I ordered a replacement battery, ignoring warnings from other users, and the replacement battery lost its ability to hold a charge after about 3 months. So now Artoo sits lonely and ignored, and the dust bunnies grow to impressive size under furniture until I remember to dust mop. I should check the site to see if they’ve fixed that problem.

Further full disclosure: The troll and his meager efforts concerns me an infinite less amount to how he affects the overall atmosphere of the blog. Specifically in terms of disrupting general OT messing around, creating nasty angry rifts and arguments between regulars, and overall putting people on edge. That is the problem needing addressing, not whether one dedicated psychotic gets his rocks off to how he thinks he’s “shown” liberals.

Hey, if you want to think that, go right ahead, but I remember little wind-up mechanical toys that did the exact same thing,
Call me when the roomba knows you are bringing a date home, and the roomba knows or she is the one and vacuums, tidies (with an photo-optic eye towards romantic discretion, too) and mixes drinks. And rolls joints. Or knows not to. Then I’ll be impressed.
It bounces off the wall and goes in a different direction? Hell, I’ll be doing that in a couple of hours, if this day proves not atypical!

The robot I’m weaiting for is the Nord C2D2! (the next iteration of this model) It’ll do everything!

I have trouble with a definition of autonomy that doesn’t include self-awareness, but let me try to wrap my head around it.

I do understand the argument – that the Jaegers aren’t robots since they have pilots. i.e. that they aren’t doing stuff on their own. But no robots actually do stuff on their own. They are all controlled by a set of instructions.

Note, I’m not commenting on the timing of the instrucitons – that with robots the programming is all done well in advance of the execution (i.e. Roomba go vacuum on Mondays versus turning a steering wheel) but rather on the granularity. There are obviously multiple systems within a Jaeger that have programs on how to operate. They’re powered by nuclear reactors – which need all sorts of automatic controls, and are still doing things when “shut down” and without pilots (unless Pacific Rim uses special nuclear reactors that can actually be “turned off”). There is probably no end to self-diagnostics (or semi-self at least, I dunno how you feel about the Jaeger AI complication) that it runs even before it receives any piloting instructions.

My argument is that the mecha is complex and complicated enough on its own that it can be considered to be doing all sorts of automatic things by itself, despite the presence of pilots.

People have been misusing the term “robot” since WWII. I remember seeing a bomb from 1945 with some kind of primitive terminal guidance referred to as a “robot bomb”. I don’t even bother any more.

To me, from a science fiction standpoint, a robot is an artificial intelligence that can move around autonomously. It doesn’t have to be a humanoid robot. IMO, since we have no artificial intelligences, we have no robots, just servomechanisms of varying degrees of sophistication.

The only place I dig in my heels is with the term “android”. An android is a 100% biological artificial human. (Ironically, that’s what the “robots” in ?apek’s R.U.R. were.) No, Mr. Data, you’re not an android, you’re a robot!

“Specifically in terms of disrupting general OT messing around, creating nasty angry rifts and arguments between regulars, and overall putting people on edge”

Thank you. It sucks. I do not posses what ever technical knowledge or extra-sensual-perception is necessary to unfailingly distinguish between the “real” posters and the nym-jacks (with links and all). I don’t know how I can be expected to know that Suzeboo posts at 6:00 am? And when I do respond to what turns out to be a nym-jack, I feel like I’ve just insulted the real poster! God damn it!
You are so lucky that trolling usually precludes any kind of intelligence. Can you imagine the circles it would run you round if it was actually smart about how it did this nym-jacking?

Oh great, the first rumblings. Looks like me and dyspepsia have a date for lunch. Story of my life. I should call it Around the World in Eighty Oy Veys!

The Jaeger has automated or robotic systems within it. Sure. Like a car, but a car isn’t a robot unless it’s KITT.

People have been misusing the term “robot” since WWII.

It was only invented a little while earlier, and still there isn’t any one definition. But when you can replace a human welder with an arm that welds in the right spots it seems to me that robot is a good word to use. Then from the practical example you have a definition to, uh, reverse engineer.

Maybe I should offer my own definition. It’s an awkward “I know it when I see it” definitions though. The characteristic I use is “automatic” – which does mean that it does stuff “by itself”, however the “by itself” does not necessarily mean alone. That it can do things automatically in the presence of others. Also that the stuff it does is entirely predictable if you know enough about the design and programming of the robot. That there is no actual element self-determination and everything for the robot is pre-ordained.

The “doing stuff” part is where I think the issue is. I believe that the controlling a nuclear power plant capable of variable power output – I qualify that as “stuff”. Integrating and co-ordinating the mass of systems that go into making a viable monster fighting giant mechanical humanoid: from limb actuators to coolant systems to weaponry to advanced exploitation of marketing opportunities – that’s all “stuff”.

I don’t consider KITT a robot since it exhibits self-awareness and self-determination. Its responses are not “robotic” but rather, uh I guess the word I’m looking for is “real”. Minus of course the meta-analysis about KITT’s actions being pre-programmed by the script.

Kinda like Threepio and Artoo. I don’t think of them as robots, but as individual autonomous characters.

Robots, I think of solely as machines. That do the stuff you tell them to. And while there may be some components to some complexes of machines that are not robots, I believe that systems within larger machines can be considered robots. I mean, what if you used a Roomba to clean up a boat?

Also, DKW, the problem here is the same we always encounter in the atheist fora, namely that you haven’t defined what you mean by god “robot.” Any discussion should START with definition if terms. And PENIS.

Well, clearly ‘robot’ is a continuum. I propose a two axis chart with mobilty on one axis and intelligence/autonomy on the other. Thus we could call commander Data a 1.0/1.3 robot (fully as mobile as a human being/fully as intelligent as a 100 IQ human + a little more) C3P0 would be a .9/1.3, R2D2 would be a .7/1.0, KITT would be .6/1.0, and a welding robot would be a .1/.1.

Yeah, my definition is too fluid. I don’t have the language. Heck it’s so fluid I don’t even know if I would be able to know it if I saw it.

I can only impress some of the general qualities. A lack of free will is important. I don’t consider free-willed conscious entities robots. Regarding R.U.R. – I think that was part of the message. Tools are one thing, things that are capable of self-identification is another. And that treating them the same has grave consequences.

As for the “doing stuff” component – there needs to be intent from the programmer/designer. That the behaviour exhibited by the machine is intended given the stimulus. Further, that it is a predictable response. i.e. the automated welding arm always hits the exact same spots.

But I admit that there is a great deal of subjectivity as to what counts as “stuff”. And a lot of that subjectivity is based on my own ignorance, so if I don’t have at least a basic understanding the complex nature of automatic processes which support whatever it is I’m doing – then I don’t consider it a robot. Meaning a device might be re-categorized as a robot if I were to learn more about its functioning.

Do I consider a thermostat a robot? No. A programmable thermostat? Still no. A thermostat that prevents the portable nuclear reactor inside a giant mecha from melting down? Yes. But I’m not sure if I can explain why.

Maybe a robot is something in which instruction is separated from action. So a Rube Goldberg device – gun plus string – isn’t a robot because the instruction can’t be separated from the action of the mechanism.

Saletan adopts a “just the facts, ma’am” pose, so there’s alot of plain language about who does what — with one glaring omission.

“[Zimmerman’s actions were] stupid and dangerous [and] led to the unnecessary death of an innocent young man. It happened because two people—their minds clouded by stereotypes that went well beyond race—assumed the worst about one another and acted in haste. If you want to prevent the next Trayvon Martin tragedy, learn from their mistakes. Don’t paint the world in black and white. Don’t declare the whole justice system racist, or blame every gun death on guns, or confuse acquittal with vindication. And the next time you see somebody who looks like a punk or a pervert, hold your fire.”

This paragraph is not alone in its reliance on the passive voice and other means to avoid phrases like “Zimmerman shot Martin.” Look for yourself, I’ll wait … See: Trayvon is dead. He ended up dead. The problem wasn’t guns. There was a gunshot. It was hardly the place or time to start shooting. There was a confrontation, a fatal struggle, etc. Zimmerman’s actions led to Martin’s death, which happened. (Saletan almost slips there.)

This is bad enough in itself, but moreover, it serves Saletan’s sick-minded thesis. He’s got a false equivalency to peddle (see above) and it won’t do to write plainly about Zimmerman pulling the trigger.

“And the next time you see somebody who looks like a punk or a pervert, hold your fire.”

Per Saletan, neither guy held his fire, see? He’s referring to Trayvon’s “creepy-ass cracker” cellphone comment to his friend. And, “Martin challenged Zimmerman, demanding to know why he was being hassled.” Saletan is careful not to say that Trayvon attacked first — he can’t know. He can tell you that Trayvon didn’t hold his fire, and then happened to die.

A strong argument and a great read. Clearly the issues of consciousness and awareness is complex. One of the many reasons why I don’t have a hard and fast definition of robot. Although, as a bleeding heart lefty with fandom tendencies, I would prefer to lean on the side of inclusivity when determining who gets basic rights.

I first encountered Searle’s Chinese room argument in Douglas Hofstadter’s column in Scientific American. Several times while I was reading it, I flipped to the cover to make sure it wasn’t the April issue, and this wasn’t a repeat of Martin Gardner’s (in)famous April Fool column. Searle’s lack of understanding of how language works—what language is—is absolutely mind-boggling.

Why not? “Automaton” is already a perfectly good word for specifying a mechanical entity lacking consciousness and free will, “robot” serves as a broader term covering all sorts of mechanical beasties. And I don’t think “android” means only biological copies, it just means human-like. DUG IN HEELS BE DAMNED.

Black God, I am only going to say this once (which is very, very unsusual for me! Very, very, very unusual): Non-response means non-response. A nice reflection it would be on palmate antlered ungulates everywhere if I broke my promise right in the same thread in which I made it! You may be, for all I know, composed of frogs, snails and puppy-dog tails or, for that matter sugar, spice and everything nice, but we Alces are made of sterner stuff, and do not lightly forgive, or forget. Okay, I forget, a lot. I’d love to forget what I’ve seen here.

A Jacksonville medical examiner dealt a blow to George Zimmerman’s argument that he was defending himself in a life or death struggle when he killed Trayvon Martin, calling the wounds the defendant suffered that night “insignificant” and “non-life threatening.” Dr. Valerie Rao also said that based on the wounds, it was possible Zimmerman’s head was only slammed into concrete once, rather than over and over as he has said, ABC News reports.

“If you look at the injuries, they are so minor they are not consistent with grave force,” Rao said. “If somebody’s head is banged with grave force, I would expect a lot of injuries. I don’t see that.” But under cross examination, Rao admitted that Zimmerman’s head could also have hit the concrete multiple times, and that the abrasions on Martin’s knuckles were consistent with him having punched someone.

A sight I am sure we can find so mutually gratifying and gruntling I will forego pointing out that “before my very eyes” is the cliche juste. But excuse me forgetting, cause these things I do, but it seems I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue.

How many of those blows should a reasonable man sustain before its ok to defend oneself, Weasel DA? So as not be accused if being racist

De la Rionda also acknowledged, based on witness and forensic evidence, that both men “were scraping and rolling and fighting out there.” He pointed out that the wounds, blood evidence, and DNA didn’t match Zimmerman’s story of being thoroughly restrained and pummeled throughout the fight. But the evidence didn’t fit the portrait of Martin as a sweet-tempered child, either.

Sort of related. There’s a pen and paper RPG called Earthdawn where the setting is a high fantasy world and yadda yadda – but there are these otherwordly mystical invaders called the Horrors which have the ability to “mark” you binding you to their will. Very Body Snatchers esque.

Anyways, the defense to this was art. To demonstrate that one was not a Horror marked minion of the Scourge, everyone practiced some form of art. Because soul-less minions are incapable of producing music or conveying emotion through sculpture or dance.

Which is an interesting idea except that you run into the other question of “what is art?”.

Anywho, only tangentially related. Sociopathic monsters with no empathy or understanding of others are not necessarily lacking in self-awareness or consciousness.

It happened because two people—their minds clouded by stereotypes that went well beyond race—assumed the worst about one another and acted in haste.

Except for one of them, even granting his assumptions about “clouded minds,” the assumption of “the worst” -again, assuming Saletan is remotely accurate about whatever Trayvon may have been assuming (which probably wasn’t that that creepy ass cracker would actually kill him), the worst happened.

Why not? “Automaton” is already a perfectly good word for specifying a mechanical entity lacking consciousness and free will, “robot” serves as a broader term covering all sorts of mechanical beasties.

I guess it is the years of conditioning to discount robots as merely objects. The same general sentiment that has led the adjective “robotic” to mean “without thought” or “by rote”.

That said, while “automatonically” is a mouthful, it sounds really effing cool.

Isn’t there a song which is commonly sung-along while the Zamboni works? Sort of like a seventh inning stretch only it’s a third quarter scrape, or something?
Well, if there is a song to sing while the Zamboni works, I’d be singing it, loudly and bestowing benevolent smiles (and possibly a serruptitious pinch or pat) on everyone within range.

What ever you do, don’t make it a register and sign in with a password setup. I hate that even for bank transactions, for posting comments to a goofy yet admirable political site it really sucks.

This joint doesn’t have much money riding on each post/comment thread, so I vote for (best) continuing to take the trash out, or (second best) promoting folks with the time for it to be moderators, or (thirdly) letting people with previously approved posts to post without moderation.